Relatives and church leaders remembered Jared Michael Padgett as someone who embraced people with smiles, hugs and firm handshakes.

They couldn't reconcile the boy they watched grow up with the one who fatally shot a freshman classmate at Reynolds High School last Tuesday, wounded a teacher and then killed himself.

The shooting has left them deeply disturbed, they said.

"Thank you for being here,'' Padgett's brother-in-law Andrew Cooper told more than 200 people who attended Monday's funeral at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Gresham. "We wish that it weren't so ... that we wouldn't have to be here for this occasion, but we are.''

Cooper said he hoped the circumstances of the gathering would provide an opportunity "to help us appreciate the sanctity and sacredness of life.''

"Jared will always be our son and our brother and our family member and our friend,'' he said. "We knew him for who he really was.''

Padgett family spokesman talks about Jared Padgett and familyThe family spokesman for the Padgett family, Deon Strommer, said Jared's father Michael had been waiting for his son after he heard of the shooting. It wasn't until 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday that Michael Padgett received a call from the authorities and learned that his son was the gunman in the Reynolds High School shooting.

Still, Cooper said, his voice shaking with emotion: "We want answers to what happened that day." He paused for a moment, then added, "I think we may need to accept we may never receive those answers.''

The nearly 90-minute memorial followed a private graveside service and burial at Gresham Pioneer Cemetery.

Photos of Padgett as a Boy Scout greeted people in the church lobby. The program featured one picture of him grinning broadly in braces and another of him wearing a crisp junior ROTC uniform.

"We have been deeply saddened and tried by the events of the past week,'' said Matt McMullin, a church elder. He said he hoped faith, inner strength and the passing of time would help heal the community.

Family spokesman Deon Strommer described the Padgett family as "numb, tired, so hurt, just don't know where to turn.''

Padgett's father, Michael, was among the Reynolds High parents who waited hours after the shooting to be reunited with their children at the Fred Meyer parking lot in Wood Village only to be horrified to learn later that his 15-year-old son was the shooter.

The first time the father saw his son's body after the shooting, "Michael took Jared's face in his hands, and asked, 'Oh my beloved son, why? What happened?'" Strommer said.

Michael Padgett and his ex-wife, Kristina, apologized in a public statement after the shooting to the family of Emilio Hoffman, the 14-year-old student who died, and Todd Rispler, the physical education teacher grazed by a bullet.

Members of the Padgett family are trying to hang on to the positive stories that friends, classmates and others are sharing, Strommer said.

They remembered a boy who was a deacon in the church's Hartley Park Ward, active in the church's Young Men's Organization and in Scouting. He loved to camp, tell jokes and make people laugh, and wasn't shy about challenging his youth group leaders to arm wrestles or pull-ups.

Bishop Michael Tobiasson described Padgett as "always full of life'' and committed to the teachings of the church. Tobiasson said his younger son looked up to Padgett as a role model, having watched him, with his sleeves rolled up, as he'd "stand at attention and be so reverent'' while he passed the sacrament during worship services.

Padgett loved video games and played Halo, the military science fiction game, with him, Tobiasson said.

Relatives said Padgett wanted to follow in the footsteps of his brother, Lucas Padgett, and join the military.

"He wanted to get big. He wanted to get strong,'' recalled Rich Huntsman, who worked with Jared Padgett over the past 2½ years in the Young Men's Organization. Padgett would ask Huntsman what types of protein he should be eating to get stronger. "The kid that I knew was someone I loved to be around,'' he said.

Lucas Padgett, wearing his blue-and-yellow military uniform, said his younger brother would wake him like clockwork every morning at 7:45 a.m.: "He'd say, 'I'm leaving now, Luke. I love you ... You're going to be home tonight, right?'''

"He was the most loving person that I have met so far on this Earth,'' Lucas Padgett said. "He'll be missed.''

Brenna Meredith, 15, a Reynolds High sophomore who had gone to school with Jared Padgett since seventh grade and had seen him the morning of the shooting, left the service before it was over.

Police said Padgett brought an AR-15 rifle and a handgun to school that had been secured in his home. Police didn't say how the firearms were secured or how he was able to get access to them.

In a journal that investigators confiscated from the family home, Padgett wrote about a plan to kill classmates and called some people "sinners,'' including those who smoked cigarettes or used the Lord's name in vain.

At the memorial, Tobiasson said he and his wife lost a child right after he became a bishop. He said he wondered, "Where do we go from here?'' and his wife replied, "Maybe we can use this experience to help someone else.''

Bishop Guy James urged those gathered to remember what matters most in life: relationships, family and children.

Bowing his head, he prayed, "May we take time to hug each other, to be there for each other, to be a kinder, gentler people.''